"She's a harum-scarum lot, I'm afraid, and a sad chatterbox, but she's the right sort of a person for a man with nerves like you! You're looking a bit white still, I see!" Wrayson would have spoken then, but his tongue seemed to cling to the roof of his mouth.

He had been asked to bring his clothes and dine, and in the minutes' solitude while he changed, he made a resolute effort to face this new problem.

There was not the slightest doubt in his mind that the girl whom he had surprised in his rooms, ransacking his desk, and whom subsequently he had assisted to escape from the Mansions, was identical with the original of this portrait.

She was the Colonel's daughter.

With a flash of horror, he remembered that it had been the Colonel himself who had pointed out the possibility of a woman's hands having drawn that silken cord together! Half dressed he sat down in a chair and buried his face in his hands.
The dinner gong disturbed him.